Responsible, along with researchers too numerous to mention, for unearthing the core of the evidence upon which this site is based.

Jack was born in Dublin and spent his youth in County Cavan. He moved to Northern Ireland and became a member of a local RAF Cadet Force in Portrush. Having a taste for the military and, despite being a neutral, like so many Southern Irishmen Jack joined up and underwent initial training before becoming a member of 2830 Squadron, RAF Regiment. In line with the then current duties of the RAF Regiment in guarding Radar stations and airfields, he was posted first to guard a Radar station on the south coast of England and later to MacMerry in East Lothian.

Here, though little did he know it at the time, he and his Squadron were playing a role in Operation Fortitude North. A later posting took him to Arctic Norway to occupy former Luftwaffe airfields and search for Germans who had committed atrocities on the local people. While there he saw the upturned hull of the Tirpitz, finally sunk by the RAF and three Tallboys. Finally he was sent to northern Germany as part of the Occupation Forces, again to German airfields.

After war service Jack returned to East Lothian to marry and live in Haddington. He married Elizabeth Young, whom Jack had met as she worked at the counter in Bill Amos’s radio shop.

David N. Haire

Responsible for all aspects of the creation of this website and for additional research.

David spent his youth in Derry/Londonderry, a port city famous for hosting the ships of many nations that guarded the Atlantic convoys. His home sat yards from HMS Sea Eagle, a unique military establishment in the UK where the RAF and the Navy shared facilities to train members of both in the arts and crafts of hunting submarines. Led by Mr Craig in Derry’s Foyle Grammar School, by curiosity and by the pleasures of reading Winston Churchill’s ‘Marlborough’, he developed an interest in military history which he furthered at university.

David then undertook research under the guidance of one of the best and most balanced of Ireland’s post-war generation of historians, Professor Theodore Moody. David’s research specialism was ‘The British Army in Ireland, 1868-92’. (M.Litt., 1973).

David spent his working life in Scotland and is now retired.

While she was fending off the customers with excuses, Bill was upstairs listening in to German radio traffic as one of MI5’s Volunteer Interceptors. During the war Jack had been puzzled as to how Bill knew where he’d been on one particular day: Bill had intercepted Jack’s unit’s radio traffic from the West Barns Shooting range!

Since he spent part of his war-service in East Lothian his first-hand experience gives authority to much of what this website contains. However, in addition to first hand experience Jack has devoted considerable efforts to guiding the labours of many people in uncovering and safeguarding the history of this period in East Lothian’s history for posterity. Jack’s group has produced two books on the period (Jack Tully Jackson and Ian Brown, ‘East Lothian at War’’, East Lothian District Library, 1996 (presently out of print) and innumerable video and DVDs shown mostly during Haddington’s Festival Week and to local History Societies, etc.

Active in a wide range of local affairs Jack has been someone unwilling to sit idly by. He has been an active member of Haddington’s Camera Club with a special fondness for AV Presentation, and, over many years did much to assist with Haddington’s Festival Week. Sadly, Jack passed away on the 31st May 2017. This web site will attempt to be a fitting tribute to Jack’s memory and his many endeavours.

Around 1990 David joined Jack’s ‘team’ and produced scripts, interviewed eyewitnesses and generally contributed to the research that underpins ‘East Lothian at war’. Initially with the invaluable aid of Kevan Gordon (Fix my Mac) and now on his own, he has undertaken the mighty task of replacing the existing website. The creation of this site is now his pleasure, sole responsibility and full-time job!